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The 2022 Major League Baseball season is a marathon and as summer winds down, the leaders of the pack pull ahead. The Yankees, Astros, Mets and Dodgers have big leads in the East and West, appear to be locks for the postseason and are favorites to win their divisions. The standings are tighter in the Central, where races between the Guardians and White Sox in the American League and the Cardinals and Brewers in the National League could go down to the wire.
This year the Wild Card has three berths in each league, keeping plenty of other teams in the hunt. Contenders include the Blue Jays, Mariners, Rays, Orioles and Twins in the AL and the Braves, Phillies and Padres in the NL. San Diego traded for Juan Soto at the deadline to gain a superstar, only to lose another when Fernando Tatis Jr. failed a test for performance-enhancing drugs.
Baseball fans have many ways to livestream their favorite team's games for the rest of the season without subscribing to cable, but the best option for one fan might not work for another. Selecting the right streaming service for watching baseball greatly depends on which team you follow and where you live. Veteran baseball streamers will note new options for 2022, including Apple TV Plus and Peacock, as well as Yankees games on Amazon Prime Video, Red Sox games on NESN 360, five more teams on Bally Sports Plus and a handful of games on YouTube.
![Juan Soto at the plate wearing a San Diego Padres uniform.]()
Juan Soto, one of the best hitters in baseball, was acquired at the trade deadline by San Diego Padres.
G Fiume/Getty Images
Live TV streaming service vs. MLB.TV
There are two major ways to stream MLB games day in, day out without a cable or satellite TV subscription:
Depending on where you live, one of the major live TV streaming services could carry the channel that has your favorite team. Those channels, called regional sports networks, deliver almost all of the regular-season games live.
Most such services, however, carry only a handful of the 30 RSNs that show MLB games -- and they're typically the most expensive. DirecTV Stream carries the most RSNs, but you'll need to spring for its $90-a-month plan; its basic $70-a-month plan doesn't include RSNs. Sling TV, a service that costs $35 a month, doesn't have any RSNs for baseball. If you're a baseball fan who needs your team's RSN, a cable subscription might actually be cheaper than streaming.
The other option is MLB.TV, a separate service that carries every game played by every team live. It's great for hard-core fans in general. MLB.TV costs $25 a month.
The big catch with MLB.TV is the local blackout restriction: You can't watch your local team's games live. Instead, they become available about 90 minutes after the game ends. If you're a Yankees fan in the New York area, for example, you can't start to watch the Yankees game until an hour and a half after the final out. Other teams' games aren't blacked out live, which makes MLB.TV ideal for fans who want to follow one or more of the 28 or 29 teams based in other cities, aka out-of-market teams.
DirecTV Stream: Best for fans of the home team
Due to MLB.TV's blackout restriction, a live TV streaming service is the best bet for following your local team. Many services carry the RSN that has exclusive rights to every regular season game, but availability varies by location and service.
In addition to the RSNs listed below, live TV services carry most if not all of the major national networks -- ESPN, Fox, FS1, MLB Network and TBS -- that regularly televise matchups from different teams around the league. Details are at the top of this article.
Here's how the RSNs stack up on each service.